KCWoodworks

Thoughts and updates from the shop

Improvements will continue til the end of time, strike where they may. — Almon Brown Strowger, Kansas City undertaker and inventor of the phone switch. [1] In the late 1870's, Strowger discovered he was losing business to a competitor because the competitor's wife was a phone operator who diverted calls…

A young programmer colleague and I were discussing programming and technology at lunch today. He asked a great question: "Over your career, have you found it difficult to keep yourself current with new programming technologies coming out all the time?" In the ensuing discussion, he postulated something like: "I imagine…

One of my favorite things about the location of my shop might surprise you. It's the Dollar store around the corner. There's been many times I was in the middle of something and needed some random thing that I could get at the Dollar store. Some of the items I've…

The importance of a good sled is underated. I'm not talking just about the snow kind. Though experience shows it's true there too. Woodworkers use a "sled" to hold a workpiece while pushing it through a saw. This gives us a safe way to hold the piece while keeping our…

No matter what kind of work you do, you need some kind of platform or place to hold your work. One of the mainstays of woodworking work piece holders is the saw horse. One thing I'm learning from working in Michelle's shop is how frequently she uses her saw horses…

More than you ever wanted to know about your other power tool. I was helping my friend and shop-owner, Michelle, with her computer the other day. It was running very slow for some reason, even though she has a huge amount of RAM for a laptop (16GB). During the analysis…